A reboot of a remake of a not very good 1961 movie. (Sorry, Frank, even Jilly agrees.)

Guess they didn't learn anything from Ghostbusters? Who the hell greenlighted that?

Everything is recycled and what is not is comic book level crap.

With the exception of certain creative projects like La La Land which was good, not great, and certainly not West Side Story or Singin in the Rain or even Les Miz.

I think the occasional great TV series like Breaking Bad or Black Mirror or Silicon Valley are killing movies.

I couldn't agree more.. It seems like every movie now is a reboot or borrows so heavily from previous films. The only time I now go to the actual theater to see a movie is with my kids to see those Disney movies.

Of course, outside of Four Rooms, Tarantino has been quite open about the fact that everything he has done has been a rip-off and homage. That does not prevent his films from being highly enjoyable, however.

Hollywood is no different from main stream music labels: it puts out overproduced banal bullshit meant to appeal to as many people as possible in order to make money.

By the way Dan, check this out. The influence is obvious, but it's a real burner!

Tarantino takes lower grade genres of film like Blaxploitation, Martial Arts and even Grindhouse and elevates them to a whole new level through superior dialogue and writing. Even though partially derivative, it is creative. Y Tu Mambien is similar, it starts at as a horny teen flick and then turns into something that transcends the original genre.

Frankly I'd rather see a bad original grindhouse film or watch Coffy than most of the new stuff. Of course this might just about Pam Grier's tits.

Tarantino takes lower grade genres of film like Blaxploitation, Martial Arts and even Grindhouse and elevates them to a whole new level through superior dialogue and writing. Even though partially derivative, it is creative.

This is debatable. I'll grant you that the grindhouse inspired flicks are elevated, but the Blaxploitation, Martial Arts, Spaghetti Westerns? I don't know. There are some effing gems in those genera. Tarantino ain't topping Sergio Leone.

We are partly to blame with our own little private movie theaters....But when you produce something genuinely good, you make money. Hollywood has just gotten too risk averse.

I don't think so. I think it's a conscious decision. Appealing to the lowest common denominator is fundamentally part of how free markets are applied to the arts. If you want to increase revenue, why make art house movies that appeal to 10% of the demographic? Making money has replaced making a quality product. Same old story lines revamped with new technology and derivative plots with average writing is enough to please the small part of the public that has half a brain left. Enter : Netflix.

I saw an interview of a hollywood exec once, and he explained it like this : We make big blockbuster movies to place in 5-800 theaters, with overseas releases and associated merchandise to make money so that we can make those interesting independent art house movies.

The problem is, nobody is going to see them. The public is dumb. They have been dumbed down in a vicious circle of profiteering, It's quite simple. As Marx said : Religion is the opium of the people." Stalin replaced religion with vodka and obsessing over hardship and death. Today, it's vapid consumerism. Appealing to the intelligentsia removes the power over the controlled masses.